Browsing content on the Web typically has been a solitary experience. If the user encounters content (e.g., text, images, audio, video, or complete Web pages) that the user wants to share, the user has had the following options: Find one or more users known to the first user, identified in the first user's email address book, instant message buddy list, phone contact list, or social network friends list; or find one or more other users with the same interests, through collaborative filtering, clustering, or other affinity grouping method. The user has also had the following options: Cut and paste, download, provide a link to, rate, caption and/or comment on the content; send one or more of these via email, instant message, SMS; or post on the user's social network profile page or send to other users through vitality, etc.
If the first user wants to interact with the content being browsed by a second user in real time, the first user would have to see if the second user is online or cause the second user to go online, establish chat via instant messenger, and then send the second user the content or link. If not on the same instant message service, the first user would have to have the second user retrieve the content or link by email. Furthermore, the second user at that moment may not have the time, inclination or affinity for sharing.
Conventional devices provide collaborative Web document editing or allow users to interact with common media on the Web in real time. However, the users are the content generators, and these interactions are scheduled a priori.